WERK as praxis invokes thinking/working through queer relationality which provides a framework essential to undo hierarchies of power

By investigating queer relationality, this special issue advances new modes of relating, engaging, and connecting to illustrate a framework of queer possi- bilities that is diverse and not final. Indeed, we intend for this special issue to serve as a compelling foundation for queer relationalities that will inspire subsequent exploration and conversation. In this special issue, queer rela- tionality is exemplified in a myriad of ways, including discourse, contiguity, and linearity, which are foundational concepts often overlooked within communication studies and queer studies when defining relationality as inherently teleological. Often, the adverse of this notion is true, in that queerness can primarily be found within the transgressive ruptures experi- enced in daily life. In this vein, this special issue, finds queer relationality within the mundane, messy, and often unintelligible chasms of lived experi- ence—across time and space. Queer relationality offers a framework that makes room for scholars to find and read queerness across different contexts, including histories, localities, affinities, and affects. In this section, we explore the theoretical, methodological, and political implications of queer relationality. Theoretical implications Queer relationality, as demonstrated in this special issue, is theorized and conceptualized beyond a reductionist framework of social experiences. Queer relationality does not involve singular theoretical viewpoints or specific pro- positions about genders and sexualities. Rather, it offers multiple ways of recognizing and studying sociality and relationality. Queer relationality ergo has three theoretical implications that help to address the epistemic violence in Western academe holistically. First, queer relationality can theoretically push back against longstanding assumptions about queer bodies that rely mainly on Western theories, con- texts, and geographies. By employing queer relationality as a theoretical tool, scholars are better able to engage in active decolonizing through scholarship by challenging much of the hegemonic worldviews, and theories, and ways of knowing born out of Euro-American philosophy. Queer relationality, as a theoretical aperture, requires scholars to unlearn sociality, relationality, queerness, as understood solely in the West, to instead make room for new increased connections that do not fall into the limited Western definition of queerness. The second theoretical implication of queer relationality is understood through underscoring locality, subjectivity, and positionality when telling queer stories and trying to better understand queerness as an inclusive com- mitment. Third, queer relationality can theoretically allow for a revisiting of epistemological practices through intentional geopolitical and transnational lens that underscores the connectivity within, throughout, and around multi- ple geographies, genders, and sexualities. Thus, by offering inclusive and complete readings and more successful theoretical engagements, queer rela- tionality can advance the epistemological significance of queerness that exists within the margins, in turn rejecting dualism and pushing back against long- standing hierarchies of power within oppressive structures. Methodological Implications In addition to theoretical implications, this special issue approaches queer relationality as a significant advancement to critical research that centers intersectional queer subjectivities. Queer relationality offers three methodolo- gical implications that bridge emerging and esteemed research and researchers in academe invested in finding innovative new ways for doing methods. First, queer relationality methodologically centers the chaotic, unintelligi- ble, ordinary sociality in conversation within a multiplicity of cultural con- texts, geographies, memories, sensations, and affective investments. Second, queer relationality demands an operational rigor, meticulousness, and critical direction. As a method, queer relationality necessitates close consideration of the social context of the research/researcher as well as the political motivations and positionality of the scholars doing the work. Third, queer relationality makes space for inclusive knowledge production that can supports theoretical, empirical, and ethical rigor by relying on reflexivity in practice. Queer rela- tionality offers many opportunities for further critical interventions that value accessibility, ethical and political projects, and most importantly, self- reflexivity about who they are and their investment in this work. Political implications Finally, queer relationality offers three clear political implications for critical researchers pursuing this line of inquiry. First, it is through queer relationality that researchers can resist longstanding institutional injustices that has insofar served to safeguard hegemonic Western ways of knowing, sensing, experien- cing, embodying, and doing queerness. Queer relationality as a political ethic emphasizes intentional undoing and unlearning. Second, queer relationality as a political orientation supports the advancing of the narratives of minoritarian subjects to create and build alternative spaces, networks, and ways of knowing that transcend the heteropatriarchal and colonial barricade within research. By employing queer relationality as a political framework, scholars can be more actively engaged in the process of (re)shaping a more just social and political order in academe and beyond. Third, queer relationality’s major political implication is its purposeful push back against longstanding structures and frameworks that make particular forms of knowledge of special value. In other words, queer relationality aims to critically dismantle the hierarchies, boundaries, and borders that impede, impact, and influence the ability to highlight diverse ways of knowing the world. Queer relationality moves us toward the pursuit of inclusive knowledge production by amplifying those that resist colonial and imperialist frameworks that have insofar been understood as canonical, or what Edward Said defines as, political knowledge. Political knowledge is the hierarchical and colonial mechanism of power used to dominate subordinate groups—a form of power that establishes a system of “truth” that nurtures hierarchies and injustices (Foucault, 1990). Accordingly, the resilience and durability of oppressive structures within Western academe is explicated by the power of cultural hegemony in sustaining what is considered higher knowledge (Said, 1979. In all, the essays in this special issue offer myriad ways to understand and utilize queer relationality as a theoretical, methodological, and political lens for the study of queerness all together. Queer relationality reflects long-standing contestations over power, agency, and influence in the study of minoritarian issues, politics, and people, which lays the groundwork for a lifetime of future research that pushes back against the enduring stronghold of the ivory tower.